AN EXERCISE IN FUTILITY. If I had a nickel for every time someone asked me "What are your favourite films" I'd have $18.65. Seriously, an inordinate amount of people ask me that question and I've never had a real answer for them. It's practically impossible for a ravening "movie buff" to narrow so many diverse kinds of films down to a favourite or two. However, in an effort to stem the constant barrage of people asking me just that question who have literally gone without sleep or decent meals because I wouldn't answer them -- here goes. I've decided to actually stop stalling and list my ten favourite films. I do this with the full knowledge that a week from now (hell, even an HOUR from now) this list will of necessity change. Favourites depends on your state of mind at the time you make such a list. So, these are the ten films I would say are my top ten favourites AT THE MOMENT. And yes, they ARE in order of preference with number one being number one! So here goes nothing....

1. L'ECLISSE (1962) directed by Michelangelo Antonioni and starring Monica Vitti, Alain Delon and Francisco Rabal.

2. NATTVARDSGASTERNA (1962) aka WINTER LIGHT directed by Ingmar Bergman and starring Gunnar Bjornstrand, Ingrid Thulin and Max Von Sydow.

3. CASABLANCA (1942) directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sidney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre.

4. IT'S A GIFT (1934) directed by Norman Z. McLeod and starring W. C. Fields and Kathleen Howard.

5. THE MALTESE FALCON (1941) directed by John Huston and starring Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Sidney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre.

6. HOLIDAY (1938) directed by George Cukor and starring Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Edward Everett Horton and Lew Ayres.

7. LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT (1962) directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Katharine Hepburn, Ralph Richardson, Jason Robards Jr. and Dean Stockwell.

8. A CANTERBURY TALE (1944) directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger and starring Eric Portman, Sheila Sim, Dennis Price and Sgt. John Sweet.

9. REAR WINDOW (1954) directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Thelma Ritter, Wendell Corey and Raymond Burr.

10. TROUBLE IN PARADISE (1932) directed by Ernst Lubitsch and starring Herbert Marshall, Miriam Hopkins and Kay Francis.

These are the ten films at the moment I would call my favourites. Ask me again next week and you might get a different list. However, these are 10 films which I can honestly say I can watch over and over again (sometimes immediately after watching them) and, if they happen to be on I without fail always watch them. I also don't need much of an excuse to pop one in the DVD player. So there you have it. That wasn't as hard as I thought. Here's hoping I've assuaged your burning curiosity. I expect to hear from everyone lamenting the absence of GHOST RIDER on this list.

Now, having been through all that mess I'm gonna do one of those "TAG" things that are so popular on the intermanet. In the same spirit of loose criteria that I used while choosing my top ten, I'm tagging the following people to list on their own blogs their top ten favourite films:

• Cheeks' Dharma (and Greg) Project
• Weaverman's Fleapit of the Mind
• Ms. Henrietta Hudson's Just a Simple Girl with a Dream
• Paleocinema
• Pax Romano's Ramblings
• Ms. Faere's Bumbler the Nuclear Puggle
• Fink's Mom: The Blog!